A farewell to two brave journalists

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 7:19 PM Share

Tim Hetherington, whom many Best Defense readers know from his film Restrepo, was killed yesterday in Libya along with Chris Hondros of Getty.

This compelling note from C.J. Chivers hits pretty close to home. I know too many stories like this, particularly one about a war reporter who was shown her the body bag holding her dead husband, also a war reporter. Her first reaction was, that couldn't be him, he isn't that short. He had been in a car that hit a land mine and his legs had been blown off.

PHIL MOORE/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:LIBYA, MEDIA

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GOLD STAR FATHER

1:47 AM ET

April 22, 2011

Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros

I spoke for a short time with Tim last year in Albany NY following a showing of Restrepo and a Q&A session, before Restrepo national distribrution happened. Indeed, he was a enlightening, gracious and humble man always steering away from himself and putting the credit and awe fully upon the soldiers of Restrepo.
I found myself very sad all day. I stared many times upon the Restrepo poster with Tim's signature upon it that hangs in my office. I studied for a solid hour Chris Hondros' many haunting photos. The country and the world has lost two very talented and brave journalists and artists.

JPWREL

2:28 PM ET

April 22, 2011

Count me in with a strong

Count me in with a strong endorsement of GOLD STAR FATHER’s comments above. While I took away a different meaning from ‘Restapo’ than what they perhaps intended I still have tremendous admiration for their work.

Heterington and Hondros were outstanding professionals who not only achieved a technical perfection in their craft but also had the eyes as GSF most astutely says of ‘artists’. In an era of feel good ‘Oprah-ization’ of the news Heterington and Hondros brought to us the gritty and hard reality of war and we all owe them a debt of gratitude.

They will missed.